Jaime Bateman Cayon

Jaime Bateman Cayon (23 April 1940-28 April 1983) was the founder and commander of the M-19 guerrilla movement in Colombia during the Colombian Conflict.

Biography
Jaime Bateman Cayon was born on 23 April 1940 in Santa Maria, Colombia to two dissident parents, and in 1957 he became a student activist in protests against Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. In 1970, four years after the formation of FARC, Bateman formed M-19, another communist guerrilla organization that fought in the Colombian Conflict against the United States-backed government, leading the group as its founder and military commander. In 1974, he stole Simon Bolivar's sword, led the successful 1980 siege of the Dominican Republic's embassy in Bogota, and stole 5,000 weapons from an army barracks in 1981. His group became the second-largest left-wing guerrilla group in the country, and he died in a tragic plane crash on 28 April 1983 in Panama.